The house is quiet

The house is quiet.




No incessant chatter. No bickering. No whining. No one yelling out for mummy every 30s. Everything is neatly in place.


But I hate it. I hate the stillness. I hate the quiet. I hate the loneliness that permeates from every corner, tendrils of past memories threatening to overwhelm me.


It's only 930pm. Saturday nights aren't meant to be like this.


I remember Saturday nights a lifetime ago. Board games, movie nights, late night shopping, crazy play pretend games, sneaking out after the kids are asleep...I didn't even know there would be a last time for these. And I can't even remember the last time it happened.


I feel like heading out to run, to tire myself to the point of exhaustion yet again.
To shut everything out.
Don't think, don't feel.


No I don't really have an inexhaustible well of energy. Exercise is just a crutch to get over the pain and burden of life, some of which are still hard to mask.


I know all too well how it feels to be at a point where you are consumed by desperation, hopelessness and loneliness. It's all consuming and you feel that there's no way out. And I know how it feels to think about the only people you love more than life itself while you are thinking of giving up on life. I've been there.
It took everything to claw out of that dark place.


The house is quiet.


One day the kids will truly be off on their own lives.
One day will be the last time they scamper cheerily through the front door yelling for me.
One day it will be the last time they sleep in their rooms just across the hallway after I've kissed them goodnight. The last time they want me to follow them upstairs because they are afraid of the dark. The last time I read a bedtime story or stage a crazy puppet show and hear them holler with laughter.


And I will not even know its the last time until there are no more next times.


The house will really be quiet then.


And my greatest fear then is there will not be anyone for me to do nothing with.


I hate this silence.